Teaching Alphabet Sounds

Help Your Child Improve Auditory Skills by Teaching Alphabet Letter Sounds
In order to read, every child must know the sounds of the alphabet letters. He must be able to recall them quickly - he sees the letter and says the sound without hesitation.

1. Test your child's knowledge of alphabet letter sounds by using the provided Alphabet List. Point to each letter and ask your child to, "Tell me what this letter says."
   *The alphabet list has no pictures, so your child has to rely totally on memory.
   *You are asking your child to tell you the letter sound, not the letter name.
   *Write down letter sounds that he or she misses. This is a good place to begin fixing your child's auditory gaps.
2. If your child needs to learn most of the alphabet letter sounds, help her create her own Alphabet Book. Staple some pieces of paper together and ask your child to draw pictures of items that begin with the sound of each alphabet letter.

      

3. You can also teach alphabet letters and letter sounds by using an Alphabet Chart with pictures.
   *Be sure to point to each letter as you are saying the letter name and letter sound.
   *Review the alphabet chart once a day and pretty soon your child will be able to point to each letter and say the sounds himself!
   *I have an alphabet chart tacked on the wall at kid-height of my son's bedroom so he can look at it.
4. When you are teaching a letter sound, be careful not to add an "uh" sound at the end of the letter. For example, letter s should sound like a snake hissing, with no throat sound. Letter s says 'sss,' not 'suh.' If your child learns letters 'c', 'a', 't' as sounding 'kuh,' 'aah,' and 'tuh,' those sounds will not come together to say cat!

Children have different learning rates. Your child may need lots of direct instruction to learn the alphabet sounds. Don't forget, he will learn letter sounds more quickly with a short daily review.

Alphabet Chart

Phonics Games

Phonics games will help your child to practise sounding out words, which will help them to read. Initially, children will learn basic letter sounds, such as "c-a-t" for "cat". Later they will move on to sounds such as "th", "sh" and "ch", then "oo", "oa" and so on. Once they recognise a few basic letter sounds, they will be able to work out what a written word says for themselves, a skill which they will be very proud to show off!
Follow the links below to the free phonics games. Your child will have lots of fun while developing their phonic knowledge and skills.

Wild West Phonics Choose from three levels - Medium, Hard or Really Hard. Listen to the word and choose the correct sound to fill the gap. (BBC Schools) Letters and Sounds Phase 2 Initial Sounds Match Click a card on the top row to reveal a letter, then click one of the cards on the bottom row to find a picture. Use your memory and try to match each letter to a picture with the same initial sound. (Letters and Sounds) Sound Sea Use the dropdown menu to choose the sound. Click the mouth to hear the sound. Wait for the correct letters to pop up then click on those which match the sound. (Kented) Letter Lifter First click the lever to start the belt. An object will appear and you will hear the word. Type the first letter of the word. If you get it right you will be able to click on the lift button and the object will be taken away. (ICT Games) Phoneme Pop Choose the group of phonemes (sounds) you want the child to practise. The sound is spoken clearly and the child has to pop the bubble containing the matching sound. Simple, but strangely satisfying, like popping bubble wrap. (ICT Games) Word Wheel This game uses three-letter words. Decide which word the picture represents, then stop each wheel when the correct letters are showing. Quite tricky! (Crickweb) Reading machine practise reading cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) words with the reading machine. Choose the correct word from the three displayed to match the object on the machine. Click next to go to the next word. (ICT Games) Three-letter house A great game to help children with cvc (consonant, vowel, consonant) words. Choose a word ending or a middle sound. Read the words and decide whether they are real words. (ICT Games) Starfall This is a brilliant site with lots of phonics games. Choose the sound and play a game, or choose an online book to read. When you are reading the book, you can click on any word to hear it being sounded out. Excellent! DJ Cows Choose a spelling pattern, e.g. words containing ch, sh and th. A word search is generated with words containing the pattern you chose. Kids love the sound effects! (ICT Games) Phonic Fighter A letter appears on an alien spaceship and you have to click the picture beginning with that letter. If you get it right, your fighter will shoot the alien. If you get it wrong, the alien will shoot your fighter. (ICT Games) CVC Maker Choose Word Match, then click the buttons to make the word. Uses simple c-v-c (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. This game could also be used to practise reading the real and nonsense words that are generated as you make your way to finding the correct word. (Crickweb)

Putting Sound Together

Help Your Child Put Sounds Together to Make Words by Playing "Connect Three."
This game will help your child connect sounds to make words. This skill is used when he sounds out new words.

How to Play:

1. Tell your child, "I'm going to say three sounds. I want you to put the sounds together and say a word. For example, I say c-a-t and you say cat. I say d-o-g and you say dog." This is a little tricky on your part because you have to think of words that can be said in three parts. Words such as me or go won't work. Longer words such as party can be par-t-y or p-art-y. You might want to practice ahead of time to say words in three parts. I have trouble thinking of words, so I usually look around the room for good ideas such as l-am-p or win-d-ow.
2. Here's a list to get you started: begin with nouns-things that can be visualized and advance to words that don't create mental pictures.

m-o-m b-ir-d h-o-t h-i-m

d-a-d s-u-n gr-ee-n c-a-n

d-e-sk pi-zz-a dr-in-k w-i-ll

br-ai-n mo-n-ey c-ol-d a-n-d

tr-e-e c-am-p st-o-p b-u-t

y-ar-d t-en-t w-i-n fr-o-m